


Just a Hollow Darkness in Disguise

by LilBiFurious



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Angst, Canon Compliant, Canon-Typical Violence, Canonical Character Death, Episode: s03e06 Motel California, Episode: s05e10 Status Asthmaticus, Gen, Hurt No Comfort, Hurt Scott McCall (Teen Wolf), POV Scott McCall (Teen Wolf), Scott McCall (Teen Wolf) Needs a Hug, Scott-Centric, Suicidal Thoughts
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-03-11
Updated: 2021-03-11
Packaged: 2021-03-17 17:48:16
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,544
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29970054
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LilBiFurious/pseuds/LilBiFurious
Summary: “Liam, don’t do this! I can’t let you kill me.”Scott means it when he says it. He means it as he tries to talk Liam down and explain how Theo’s twisted everything. He means it as he fights for his life, and for Liam’s.He means it until he isn’t sure he does anymore.(or: Scott’s POV of the library sequence in “Status Asthmaticus,” paralleling his speech in “Motel California”)
Comments: 8
Kudos: 19





	Just a Hollow Darkness in Disguise

**Author's Note:**

> *TW: This fic deals with suicidal thoughts throughout, so please proceed with caution. It's a heavy read. Take care of yourselves!
> 
> On my last "Teen Wolf" re-watch all I could think about during Scott's death sequence in "Status Asthmaticus" was how I'm not convinced he ever stopped feeling passively suicidal after “Motel California.” So, I wound up writing this. Somebody _please_ help this boy.  
> This fic is canon compliant, but I took some small liberties with a few details.
> 
> A massive thank you to [momentofmemory](https://www.archiveofourown.org/users/momentofmemory/pseuds/momentofmemory) for the beta read and for endless encouragement! ❤ Go check out her incredible companion gif set [here](https://momentofmemory.tumblr.com/post/645319580291661824/3x06-5x07-5x10-companion-set-to)!

**“** We can’t all be  _ True Alphas.” _

In less than twenty-four hours Scott’s status has been weaponized against him twice. An accusation bursting from Stiles’ chest. A taunt rolling sweet and derisive off the tip of Theo’s tongue. 

To think that yesterday it had been:  _ “We gotta protect him, right?”  _ and Corey crying “ _ Don’t let them kill me!”  _ from the ambulance. Yesterday it had been: “ _ Scott, this is what you do!” _ —a reproach cleverly masked as reassurance. That is what a  _ True Alpha _ would do, isn’t it? Protect people?

What is an alpha who tries, always tries, and only really finds the bodies? 

_ “Scott, this is what you do!” _ And only now, as Theo stands gloating across the mountain ash barrier, mouth curled and eyes shining, does Scott realize he hadn’t meant “protect people” at all.

He had meant exactly what Scott had heard:  _ You fail people. _

_ True Alpha. _ The title feels like a condemnation.

After several futile attempts to escape, Scott finds himself on the library roof searching for another way out. He’s holding onto any shred of hope to find some loophole, a limitation to the supernatural barrier holding him prisoner. He isn’t sure exactly what Theo is planning, what “the supermoon” has in store, but every one of his instincts says it’s going to be bad. 

For all of them.

The roof is as useless an exit as the library doors, the mountain ash indiscriminate of height in its boundary. To fight it is pointless, but he’s lost all sense of logic.

He’s not worried so much about what will happen to him. He’s worried about his pack, broken and scattered with no inkling of the unfolding betrayal threatening their lives.

He doesn’t want to just find their bodies, too. 

He has to get out, has to find them before Theo or the Dread Doctors do. Panic clouds his mind; desperation buzzes once more beneath his skin.

He thinks of Lydia’s face after that same desperation drove his claws into the base of Corey’s skull. She’d been gentle with him still, but the climbing pitch and muted earnestness in her voice had said everything.

“ _ You could have hurt him, Scott! ...Really hurt him.” _

Scott remembers the feeling of cold, wet tile against his bare skin as he laid on the locker room floor—vulnerable, terrified, paralyzed—after Peter had done the same to him.

He knows. He  _ knows. _

_ I wish I could take it back. _

Scott can’t breathe. He stumbles forward, reaching for the ground as he falls to his knees and fumbles blindly for the inhaler in his pocket. Shake, press, inhale. Nothing.

He can’t breathe. Shake, press, inhale. If anything, his chest feels tighter than before. 

What good are his powers or the supercharged battery glowing above him if he can’t even  _ breathe _ ? Frustration crumples the plastic and metal in his hand; violet dusts the night sky. He remembers now, the inhaler isn’t his. It’s the one Theo tossed him in the animal clinic, and puff by puff it’s been corrupting his lungs all day.

“Wolfsbane.” 

Theo’s treachery poisons him all over again. 

Dread twists Scott’s insides when Liam appears, shining eyes highlighting his shift in the darkness.

Poison always spreads.

The feeling grows as they talk, tension coiling Scott’s muscles as Liam’s rage propels his words. This is it, what Theo was hinting at.

“You’re going to keep your promise. Even if it kills you!”

There’s a chill in the wind as it picks up; it’s nothing compared to the quivering hatred in Liam’s voice. 

All attempts to reason with Liam do nothing to temper his fury. Scott can’t quite catch his breath—the wolfsbane he’s inhaled serving its purpose as they struggle. The air’s completely knocked from him when his back collides with metal roofing and it’s all he can do to keep Liam from pinning him there. Then the skylight gives way and Scott plummets through, Liam on top of him.

The library quickly transforms into a battlefield—blood stained glass and splintered wood and all of Scott’s regrets littering the floor. He doesn’t have time to register the shards slicing into his skin as he dodges the claws threatening to join them.

Panic fully settles in with Liam’s arm around his neck, and he manages to twist out of the grip only to be thrown to the foot of the stairs. Scott reaches for them, something solid to support him as he clambers backward up the steps, barely sending Liam back with the flat of his foot. 

“Liam, don’t do this! I can’t let you kill me.” 

Scott means it when he says it. He means it as he tries to talk Liam down and explain how Theo’s twisted everything. He means it as he fights for his life, and for Liam’s. 

He means it until he isn’t sure he does anymore. 

“That’s what you don’t get, Scott.  _ I _ want to kill you.  _ I  _ want to!”

The words hit harder than any blow, and Liam charges again.

Scott should be focused on protecting himself, but his body moves on autopilot as he blocks and strikes. Liam gives everything he’s got—every ounce of pain and anger as the intoxicating influence of the moonlight spills in through the paned window. Scott’s thinking only of Hayden and the heartache behind the animosity which he understands too well.

_ Hayden is dying. She’s dying because of me. _

Some dark part of Scott wonders if Liam is right to want him dead. Scott tried to save her, to save them all. He tried and tried and tried and lost everyone. What good are promises if he can’t ever keep them? 

He thinks of Corey, lifeless in the hospital garage. A mess of blood and mercury just like all the other chimeras. Hayden, about to join them. What good is trying if he can’t ever protect them?

_ Corey wasn’t your fault. Hayden  _ isn’t  _ your fault. You know she isn’t. _

It should be a comfort, the familiarity of the words as if spoken again from Allison’s lips. But they were wrong about Derek then. They’re wrong now, too.

_ This is my fault. I failed them. _

His will cracks with the wood of the table beneath him.

_ Get up! Get up! _

But he doesn’t. 

He can’t.

Liam is on top of him before he has a chance to reconsider, and it’s all Scott can do to bring his arms up to shield his face as Liam starts tearing into whatever he can reach.

Scott feels it when Liam’s claws first pierce his skin. He waits for his nerves to scream in protest, for the burning sensation of pain and the unsettling warmth of blood spilling over. He doesn’t feel a thing. Not the jagged, splintering wood digging into the muscles of his back. Not the weight of Liam sitting on top of him. Not the sharpness of Liam’s claws as they rip through his flesh, relentless. Scott’s body no longer feels like his own. 

Liam’s roar doesn’t sound right as it echoes through the library.

It sounds like Isaac saying  _ “I can’t be here anymore,” _ and the unspoken  _ “with you” _ that Scott heard all the same.

Like the gentle whistle of the wind and a silent goodbye, so many words never said as Derek nods across the way. ( _ You don’t need my help anymore.)  _ Scott had wanted to hear them, to say they weren’t true. ( _ Yes, I do.)  _ He’d only nodded back.

He hears himself pleading,  _ “I don’t want you to leave,” _ and Kira’s answer,  _ “I don’t want to hurt anyone” _ —the “ _ especially you _ ” stinging more than it should.

In Liam’s roar, Scott hears himself. It echoes his heart breaking again and again.

Scott thinks there’s another voice now, someone yelling across the room. 

“Liam!  _ Liam! _ ”

And it sounds like Allison, struggling for breath.

“Liam, what are you doing?!”

Like Lydia screaming her name. 

“Hayden died a few minutes ago. She’s gone...”

_ Everyone is gone. _

He only realizes it’s Mason when he’s hoisted up from the ground, nose filling with blood-laced cologne and his body melting against the warmth of Mason’s side. 

“Scott, what happened?”

“It’s the supermoon.” Scott can only manage a whisper. As he says it, he really wants to believe it was just—

“Bad timing.” He’s all too aware of the loss of warmth when Theo materializes and Mason is ripped from him, the boy’s head colliding with one of the tables as he joins the wreckage on the floor. A shiver runs down Scott’s spine when he meets Theo’s eyes. 

There’s contempt reflected in them, but not like Liam’s. His isn’t sudden and intense like an uncontrolled fire. Rather, his gaze is cold and hard-set, fueled by a slow and persisting resentment.

Liam’s hatred was searing. Theo’s is paralyzing.

Theo’s claws rip into him like a sword through the stomach. Scott’s hand flies up to grip at Theo’s arm, his chin left with nowhere to go but Theo’s shoulder as he collapses. They’re so close Scott can feel Theo’s breath against his skin—one final, deadly embrace. 

For a moment, it’s like he’s standing in the animal clinic with Stiles’ hand braced against his shoulder, the nogitsune twisting the katana inside him. He can almost hear rain pouring outside the library instead of his own blood splattering against the floor. He wants to scream at Theo to stop, like he pleaded for Stiles to, but he can’t. His heart struggles, pulsing erratically against the tips of Theo’s unrelenting claws as they tear up into his abdomen. Scott’s eyes flare to life; his body is screaming for him to heal, to fight back. 

“They aren’t like you,” his breath hitches on the words. It takes him a moment, a few shallow inhales, before he can finish. “They never will be.”

“Why?” Theo hisses against his ear. “Because I’m not a  _ real _ werewolf?”

_ Not a werewolf _ , Scott thinks.  _ A monster.  _

“Because you’re barely even human,” he chokes out. And it’s true. But he can hear the rain pounding down all around him, and Stiles is screaming  _ “Some of us are human!” _ and he can’t help but feel like it’s true for him too.

He can’t breathe. He can’t breathe. Scott feels like he’s drowning, and not because of the fluid filling his lungs. When did his best friend stop thinking of him as human? When did he stop being human too?

Theo twists his claws as he shoves Scott back against the steps, leveraging to plunge even deeper. And Scott doesn’t react. He doesn’t  _ do _ anything. He can feel the tissue trying to knit itself back together, but it can’t. Not with Theo’s fingers buried in his chest. 

There’s a voice somewhere, distant in his head, that sounds like Allison:  _ You can’t let him kill you! _

_ Why not?  _ He thinks back.  _ Why  _ not?

Mason is still unconscious a few feet away, and Scott supposes Theo might kill him too. He should fight back for him—he should  _ do _ something. But what good would it possibly do?

_ Every time I try to fight back it keeps getting worse. People keep getting hurt, keep getting killed. _

Faces flip through his mind like the pages of a picture book—Allison, Boyd, Erica, Aiden. Corey, Tracy, Hayden. The janitor in the bleachers. The omega in the woods. Teenagers with their heads bashed in and throats slashed. 

Even the blank pages are riddled with death, all the nameless victims who live like shadows around his heart. 

_ What if the problem is just me?  _

A voice buried deep insists none of these deaths were his fault, that he isn’t being fair. Maybe deep down Scott knows this part of him is right, knows he did everything he could to protect them all.

He can’t bring himself to listen.

_ What if dying is the best thing I could do for everyone else? _

There’s no Allison to stitch up his wounds. No Isaac to fight when he can’t. No Stiles to pull him back from the edge, and no Lydia to remind him he’s strong.

_ There’s no hope. Not for me. _

Darkness surrounds him, a blanket made of every destructive thought he’s ever had. It was always there—a presence lingering just out of reach ever since that night in the animal clinic. He’s grown so accustomed to sublimating that ominous emptiness, filling it with other people.

_ “What do you do instead?”  _

It was a weighty burden, carrying death with him.

_ “I look for my friends.”  _

The answer was once a consolation.  __

_ Where are they now? _

Kira’s somewhere in the desert fighting her own demons. Malia’s been distancing herself from the pack for days. Liam’s at the hospital, probably, wishing Scott were dead. He hasn’t talked to Stiles since their fight. Lydia is missing. 

There are no friends to look for. Just a hollow darkness promising relief.

_ Maybe I should just be no one again. _

Blood pools beneath him on the library steps, but it might as well be gasoline. There’s no lit flare in his hand, but Theo’s eyes shine just as bright and golden as a flame above him. They don’t shift to blue, but they’re cold and vicious as Scott’s life drains away. 

Fear floods his body, and Scott is all too aware of his unfamiliar surroundings and how merciless his last moments will be. He longs for Deaton’s calming voice or his mother’s warm embrace; for the smell of his bedroom and Kira’s shampoo to fill up his lungs and make him feel safe. But they aren’t there with him.

Scott is utterly alone. And he feels like he has been for a long time.

His body has stopped trying to heal, now, and heat leeches away with the blood from his wounds. He remembers how cold Allison was when her body went limp and all light drained from her eyes. He remembers how she said it didn’t hurt as she lay dying; it’s how he knows he’s dying now. 

_ “I love you, Scott McCall,”  _ she’d whispered on her final breaths. He finally understands why. He finds himself wishing he could say _ “I love you”  _ one last time and have it fall on caring ears.

Scott isn’t sure if his chest feels heavier from the weight of those he’s lost, or if it’s his lungs finally giving up. He wonders if his friends, his mom, will know that he loves them. He didn’t get to say goodbye.

But he just can’t fight anymore. 

_ It’s better this way. _

At least now the color of his eyes won’t be a target, beckoning danger at every turn. There will be no “True Alpha” to covet. His pack, his  _ family _ , won’t be at risk because of him anymore.

It’s a strange feeling when his power bleeds away, his spark snuffed out like the flame of a burnt candle. He thinks Theo must be gone, but Scott can’t tell for sure. He can’t hear anything but a faint ringing nothingness in his ears and his vision fades with the red from his eyes. It’s not long before the flooding light of the super moon is enveloped by an all too familiar darkness.

_ I should be no one again,  _ Scott thinks as his heart stutters to a stop.

_ No one at all.  _

  
  
  


**Author's Note:**

> _Written for Teen Wolf Legacy's Top Dogs Week, day four: Angst._   
>  _Title from “Headlights--Stripped” by Nick Wilson_
> 
> Thanks so much for reading! ❤ Come yell at me for my sins on [tumblr](https://a-lil-bi-furious.tumblr.com/) or in the comments below!


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